Small firms in intellectual property boost

Small firms are set to be offered audits by the government to help them "protect and promote innovation".

Announced today by the UK science and innovation minister Malcolm Wicks, up to 40 small firms will be offered the chance to experience a three-day audit being piloted in collaboration with four regional development agencies.

Mr Wicks lauded the development, suggesting that the protection of intellectual property rights among firms was crucial "in a world where the UK's economic competitiveness is increasingly driven by knowledge-based industries, innovation and creativity".

The development forms part of plans first recommended in the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property, published last December.

Speculating that 60 per cent of commercial innovations come from small businesses, Mike Cherry, financial affairs chairman for the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), said the pilot "could go a long way towards bridging the gap that small businesses face when they have invented a new product".

"At present it is very costly and bureaucratic to protect that invention," he added.

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